Thursday, March 12, 2009

Jack Webb's only western novel



I was writing obits for the Ruudinsavu/Gunsmoke magazine of the Finnish Western Society and decided to include Jack Webb. Why? Didn't he write mystery novels with that priest Shanley in them? Yes, but he also wrote one western novel, under the pseudonym of Tex Grady. High Mesa came out as a hardback in 1952 from Dutton and then in 1953 as a paperback from Popular Library.

Here are the both covers and also the introduction (probably the back cover copy) from an Abebooks seller:

Disguised as an itinerant cowhand, U.S. Army Captain Jeff Macon is working at the Lazy A. Detailed by his Colonel to discover the source of unrest which is causing border warfare in the vicinity of the Lazy A and the Hacienda Moreno, Jeff has his work cut out for him. Playing a lone hand against the perpetrators of such treachery as Jeff unearths is a dangerous game. Jeff is smart, and he is no coward, invaluable qualities in view of his being called on to out-think and out-fight as villainous a gang of cutthroats as ever roamed the border.


(And no, he's not the same Jack Webb who was in Dragnet.)

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